[u-u] How to brick your laptop

[David Gilbert]

On 2/2/2016 10:51 AM, arocker at Vex.Net wrote:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/delete_efivars_linux/
>
> A somewhat implausible scenario, but it's clearly happened.
>

It's actually a really good example of why linux development is
fundamentally flawed with respect to other projects like FreeBSD.

The reason this "feature" is in Linux is because "it could be useful" or
"there are use cases for it."  This is not good engineering.  One of
FreeBSD's guiding principles (and, indeed, shared by most BSDs) is POLA:
The Principle Of Least Astonishment.  Astonishment is not just bad
engineering, it's fatally bad engineering. 

The fact that hardware can brick will never go away.  From the Commodore
PET 2001's famous poke (that set the screen refresh to a rate that
triggers a rather "dramatic" failure) to autonomous cars and rocket
ships (do I need to explain failure?), software can cause catastrophic
failures.  This is why POLA is among the most noble of goals of which an
operating system can aspire.

But then the whole idea that you expose our underwear in full view of
the filesystem is silly anyways, so linux is a lost cause in this matter.